How You Play the Game
by KADH
Summary: Gil Grissom may have long been a consummate card player, but one evening during their honeymoon, Sara succeeds in teaching her new husband something he didn't know about poker. Follows "Lost and Found" and takes place circa late winter/early spring 2009.
1. The Shuffle

**How You Play the Game**

Gil Grissom may have long been a consummate card player, but one evening during their honeymoon, Sara succeeds in teaching her new husband something he didn't know about poker.

_Part of the _Marriage of True Minds _sequence. Follows _Lost and Found_ and takes place during Grissom and Sara's honeymoon, circa late winter/early spring 2009._

xxxxxxx_  
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"The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt

of by those with an academic bent,"

"Things I Have Learned Playing Poker on the Hill_," _

_Writing in Restaurants, _David Mamet

xxxxxxx

**The Shuffle**

"The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent;

it happens at the poker table all the time,"

General David M. Shoup

xxxxxxx

"Solitaire?" Grissom asked, motioning to the deck of playing cards in his wife's hands, surprised and a tad disappointed if truth be told, as he wasn't all that keen that evening on settling into solitary pursuits.

Sara simply shook her head. Solitaire was certainly not what she had in mind.

Nor was following Hank's lead and heading straight to sleep. The three of them having just returned from what had quickly become their customary moonlit stroll along the shore, the boxer had happily made a beeline for the bed, content to nap the rest of the night away, but as it was just shy of eight, neither Grissom nor Sara were anxious to do the same.

Sara had just finished lighting the last of the lanterns, preferring their soft glow to the harsh glare of the cabin's naked bulbs, when from out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of her husband stripping off the light jacket he'd donned to ward off the chill. And it clicked, something different they could do, some other way in which they might wile away the hours until sleep.

Not that she hadn't enjoyed their lazy, languid sort of evenings as of late. They'd spent several pleasantly engaged in making their way through the copy of _Moby Dick _Sara had given Grissom as a wedding present. While not perhaps the most romantic of books, it proved diverting all the same.

And this being after all, not only their first holiday together, but also their honeymoon, they'd of course also been busy occupied in far, far less intellectual pursuits. Except Sara wasn't quite ready to succumb to that omnipresent hum of desire, at least not just yet. Some things just weren't meant to be rushed.

Which was why she had gone to unearth the rather worn pack of cards she'd spotted during her earlier perusals of the sparsely populated bookshelves.

"I thought," she began with a grin that only made her husband more curious rather than less, "I might be able to tempt you to a game."

"Poker?"

"You play anything else?"

Instead of replying, he elected to pose a question of his own. "Since when are you into poker?"

His incredulity was, Grissom thought, well warranted as Sara usually refrained from ever playing cards with him, maintaining as she did, it was bad enough to be continuously bested at chess. But when he reminded her of this fact, her grin only grew and she repeated what had become a sort of mantra over the last several days of their vacation cum honeymoon:

"There's a first time for everything, Gilbert."

As he couldn't quite refute or dispute this, he opted for continuing in staring dumbfounded at her until Sara added, with more than a hint of challenge in her voice, "If you're game."

To which he gave her an _Okay_ so hesitant it had three syllables instead of its usual two.

"But," she said as he accepted the proffered deck, "I thought we might raise the stakes."

In camp, they usually played with matchsticks, which Grissom had to admit took some of the fun out of the game.

"You want to play for money?"

"No," was all she replied.

"Then?" he asked, genuinely befuddled, something Gil Grissom wasn't very often.

Heartily amused, Sara chuckled, "Don't tell me in all those years, you've never once played strip poker? The game's as old and venerable as the original, after all."

While this was in fact true, Grissom gave her a look that plainly said, _You have to be kidding_.

And he literally shuddered at the possibility, particularly when he recalled precisely whom he regularly played with back in the day. There were just some people you didn't want to see naked. Ever.

"Then," she smiled a mischievous sort of smile, "definitely a first time for everything."

Grissom wasn't sure he exactly trusted that grin.

Then as if the thought had just occurred to him, which it had, he asked, "You?"

"Ever play strip poker?" she finished. Sara shrugged; neither _yes_, neither _no_.

"Well, you did go to Berkley," he rejoined as if that explained away any number of his wife's more radical notions and practices. "But aren't we a little..."

"A little what?"

"_Old_ for strip poker?"

"Speak for yourself," Sara harrumphed and Grissom promptly and wisely switched tacks.

"This mean," he said, starting to idly shuffle, "you're not afraid I might, what was it you warned Luis and Bernie at Christmas,_ take the shirt off your back_?"

"Nope. But perhaps you should be."

With an arch of the eyebrow, he warned, "You might want to save your bluff for the game, dear."

"This mean you're in?"

_Why not?_ he thought. Even if this wasn't at all what he'd had in mind when he'd told Catherine it was_ time to up the ante_, what were vacations for but for trying new things, vacating your everyday life if only for a little while? Besides, it wasn't as if they'd didn't regularly see each other in various stages of undress. And Grissom wasn't, at least by his own reckoning, a particularly shy or vain sort of guy.

Poised to deal, he asked, "Game?"

"Dealer's choice."

"Five card draw."

"Wilds?"

"Oh, I think this is wild enough."


	2. The Discard

**The Discard**

"Cards are war, in disguise of a sport,"

_Essays of Elia_, Charles Lamb

xxxxxxx

The first hand went surprisingly fast, Grissom's three aces easily beating Sara's pair of sevens.

"It's a bit more challenging with more players," he offered as he gathered up the cards.

"Yeah, I can just see it," Sara replied with a snort of disbelief, "us playing strip poker with the rest of the team. Besides, I've already seen Greg naked."

Noting her apparent lack of enthusiasm regarding the latter, her husband intoned, "Not all that keen on repeating that particular experience?"

"No offence to Greg, but not really, no. And I doubt he'd be all that keen on another month of dumpster duty."

"_Another_?"

Sara let out an exasperated sigh. "We've been over this before, so don't play dumb, Gil. It doesn't suit you."

Choosing to ignore this he said, "And you forget I'm not boss anymore."

"Still not sure that would make a difference," she replied before nonchalantly and without any protest slipping off her short-sleeved over-shirt. Fair was fair after all.

Grissom was about to provide some sort of clever rejoinder, but having peered up from his shuffling just in time to catch sight of her first discarded garment plunging haphazardly to the floor, he said instead, his expression and voice rife with bemusement, "Haven't you started from the wrong end, dear?"

Sara only beamed. "Loser's prerogative."

xxxxxxx

"So whatcha got?" she asked, gleefully splaying a full house on the table.

"A pair of nipples."

There was a momentary stretch of stunned silence, both of them equally if differently taken aback, before Grissom hurriedly corrected, "_Nines_. I mean nines."

His wife had a hard time concealing her smirk. As she'd rather rapidly lost a series of hands, by now, Sara's cards weren't the only thing on display. So considering her current state of dress - or rather undress - perhaps the flub was wholly understandable. But that didn't mean she was above teasing her husband over it.

"Wow," she began, her voice alight with amusement. "That one would have done Sigmund proud. Although, from that blush, Gil, I would have guessed flush."

In this, her observation actually didn't contain the least bit exaggeration. Embellishment of any sort was entirely unnecessary. For Grissom had indeed gone several shades pinker in a way Sara had never quite observed him do before.

It was an intriguing, if utterly unexpected development.

Usually cool, calm and collected as he was, particularly when it came to cards, flagrantly flustered was not a state Gil Grissom was frequently found in. But tonight, that slip and coloring of his was only the most obvious manifestation of what Sara had in the course of their game observed to be an ever-evolving perturbation, one which only seemed to grow more and more the less and less she was wearing.

It fascinated her to no end.

For in poker as in life, Grissom had a history of keeping his cards close to his chest. Thus that poker face of his was practically the stuff of legends. During all their years working together in Vegas, Sara had watched him stare down the worst of suspects all without batting an eye, so she knew it took a lot to faze him.

Well, most of the time. Apparently his lack of tells didn't apply to strip poker.

The change had been almost imperceptible at first. A slight slip of that intent, intense, usually unreadable placid mask of his. Then he went quiet. Although this didn't come as much of a shock to Sara, cognizant as she was to the fact that Grissom preferred to listen rather than talk while he played. It was a habit which had frequently proved profitable in the past, him having picked up quite a few interesting tidbits during his games with Sheriff Montgomery and the various other members of Vegas's old guard. And she did have to admit there was some truth to his oft-repeated assertion that it was hard to observe anything with your mouth moving.

Except precisely how much could he possibly observe - and poker was after all at it's heart a game of observation - with his nose so steadfastly planted in his cards?

Grissom certainly hadn't started the game that way. Instead, he'd sat back, at ease and relaxed, his blithe laissez-faire front only betrayed by the steely glint in his eyes. But that all changed once Sara whipped her tank top over her head. After that, he seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes from repeatedly drifting lower, lower, then lower still, before they rapidly flicked back up to hers again. Then as soon as he'd noticed she'd noticed this, he resolutely fixed his gaze on his cards.

Which puzzled Sara slightly, his gaze as well as his rigidly focused attempt not to look. After all, it wasn't as if he hadn't seen it all before and more, and just that morning.

If she had asked him what it was exactly he found so discombobulating, Grissom would have had to say it was that peek, that hint of what he knew lay beneath that was so maddening. But she didn't ask and he didn't volunteer.

So Sara was left marveling over just how full of surprises her husband was.

Although this actually came as no surprise, as she'd frequently found him that way. Like when he called and asked her to come to Vegas that first time. Or told her he'd been interested in beauty ever since he'd met her. When he sent her that plant. The first time he said he loved her. And then there was the day out there with the bees when out of the blue, he'd suggested they get married. And she wasn't about to forget that afternoon not all that many weeks ago when he showed up in Costa Rica just to be with her.

And tonight when she suggested cards, she hadn't actively set out to fluster him. Maybe rib him a little. More than a little.

Her quip of "You're on a streak," just before she reached back to unclasp her bra had indeed been pure tease.

At least then he'd had enough presence of mind to deadpan, "I'm not sure that's a term you want to be bandying about. All things considered."

But Sara hadn't anticipated him becoming quite so distracted.

Sure she had heard him make mention of her being a distraction frequently enough. But Grissom was usually pretty good at keeping his distraction as well as most of his thoughts and feelings to himself. Sometimes a little too good.

But this was an entirely new species of distraction.

Not that she wasn't going to take full advantage of it. Sara didn't cheat. Didn't believe in cheating, especially not in a friendly game of cards. But she wasn't immune to evening up the odds a bit or taking advantage of an advantage she hadn't expected to possess, at least not to such a profound degree.

But her losing had left her with just that: a real advantage.

And of course she couldn't quite resist the temptation of heightening said distraction either.

Perhaps she too openly relished in the prospect, as her unaccustomed gaiety caused her husband to ask, frankly perplexed, "Since when are you so keen on losing?" Sara certainly wasn't usually so gleeful about the eventuality.

It was just good to see him squirm a little. Well, actually a lot.

Besides, if you couldn't tease and flirt like hell with your husband during your honeymoon when else could you?

So that was why and how Grissom ended up having to finally ante up. Having recovered some slight measure of composure post gaffe, he bent to undo the laces to his boots.

"Shoes one item or two?" he asked.

Sara only laughed, "Since when are you shy?" in return. He simply waited for her to reply. "One."

He didn't look up, but his suddenly, incredibly flippant, "In a hurry to lose then?" left her the one momentarily taken aback.

Ultimately, it was simply a matter of Grissom electing to own up to his embarrassment rather than continue to shy away from it. It was silly not to. She was his wife after all, and although it was admittedly embarrassing to get caught doing it, being able to openly leer from time to time was technically permissible within the bonds of matrimony - or at least should be. Besides, there was just something about having her sitting there so very nearly naked, yet so very out of reach which proved tantalizing to say the least. That and there was no resisting that flirtatious playfulness of hers. It was literally infectious.

At the moment, Sara wore an impish sort of grin and not much else as she chose to shuffle the deck not once, twice, or even three or four times.

When she started on a fifth, he asked, "You intending to shuffle the spots off those cards?" To which she shot him a blank look.

"Deal, Sara."

Giving the cards a sixth and final shuffle before swiftly distributing them, Sara countered, "And here I thought you believed in being thorough."

Grissom tried and failed to turn his splutter of a cough into a laugh. A response due to a certain, though rather small, degree to her bald-faced innuendo, but more so because his wife had opted after picking up her cards to lean forward and rest her arms on the table in such a manner there was no way to miss how the last couple of days at the beach not only had further lightened her already honeyed hair, but had also deepened her usually fair skin and heightened her freckles. Or the fact that the cool night air was having a rather conspicuous effect on certain parts of her anatomy.

"Chilly, dear?" he inquired solicitously.

Sara shook her head, proffering him what he knew to be a wholly way too oblivious, "No, not really. Why?"

He made no reply. There was no need.

For a while now he'd suspected Sara was not only not above, but in fact definitely out to play dirty. When after she lost the next hand and proceeded to pop the snap on her khakis and shimmy them down over her hips and the shoes and socks she was still very much wearing, he was certain she was.

His own socks had come off rather rapidly after that.

But his three of a kind beat her two pair and Sara rose to slip off her ever practical and yet somehow still sexy as hell plain cotton underwear. She made no show of it, but Grissom fumbled his shuffle anyway, causing the cards to explode from his fingers and all over the floor.

As she bent to help in the retrieve and recovery process, Sara couldn't help but chuckle, "I didn't realize we were playing fifty-two card pick up."

Her hilarity, however, proved only temporary. For she could feel his eyes caressing her even before she fully turned around.

There was certainly nothing hidden in the way he was looking at her now. Sara simply lacked the words to describe it. But then she'd always had. No man but he had ever really looked at her like that. Not that she'd wanted general admiration. Mostly, she just wished for that of the man in front of her, who was now, happily her husband.

Still, she colored. Though after a moment, she rallied sufficiently in order to let out a coy, "See something you like?"

And it was Grissom's turn to grin.


	3. The Reveal

**The Reveal**

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you," Paul Newman

xxxxxxx

"Okay, shirt's got to come off this time," Sara insisted when her unexpected straight flush neatly beat his small straight.

Grissom's curious rejoinder of "Whatever happened to loser's prerogative?" only netted him a glare which plainly brooked no refusal.

Thinking two could play at this game, he took his dear, sweet time with the buttons. Which would indeed have been fair play, all things considered, except unfortunately for him his dawdling didn't seem to faze Sara in the slightest. She simply sat there in her shoes and socks and nothing else, unabashedly bold as brass, not to mention uncharacteristically patient and apparently quite content in waiting for him to get on with it.

Once his shirt joined the rest of most of her clothes, she gave his topless form an openly appreciative once-over before shuffling.

"It was for your own good, you know," she said. "You were starting to look a little... hot."

Grissom tried and failed to suppress a groan.

"What?" came her blithe reply as she neatly divvied out the next hand, one that soon ended in her pair of cowboys being bested by his trip sevens.

Sara kicked off one shoe, than the other before lounging back cross-legged in her chair solely shod in her socks and utterly unconcerned about the prospect. She certainly had no reason to be shy about her body, though in Grissom's experience she tended to be. But not tonight. He liked it. That openly flirtatious mien of hers. It was a stimulating circumstance to say the least.

He dealt. When it came time to discard, she took three cards, gave her new hand a cursory examination before saying, "You know, even without that shirt, you're still looking hot. Drink, Gil? No, don't," she insisted as he started to rise. "I'll get it," she volunteered. "Even if you're already up."

She was duly impressed when he didn't shift or squirm under her stare like most men she knew would. Instead, her husband coolly intoned, "Pointing out the obvious doesn't make you intelligent, just observant, dear."

True, it was rather obvious, to say the least. And true or not, it was the last straw, for Grissom in any case.

Fixing a firm hand about her waist, he halted her retreat towards the cabin's small kitchenette before she could get much past the table, effectively abbreviating Sara's litany of "So water? _Agua dolce_? Or something stronger? There's still half a bottle of peach schnapps left over from yesterday unless you want to save it for more butterfly -"

She spun in surprise, her hands coming to rest on his chest, their bodies and faces so close Sara was certain he was only a breath away from kissing her. But he didn't. He simply held her there for a long moment. A very long moment.

Causing her to mutter, "Tease," under her breath.

"Tease?" Came Grissom's incredulous echo. "Me?"

"Yes, you," she assiduously maintained.

"_I'm _the tease?"

Sara let out a laugh at this. But soon her eyes and gaze warmed and her impish grin gave way to naked desire. Still, she nodded intently before saying, her words punctuated by the light trailing of her fingertips down his bare skin, "You're wearing far too many clothes for one."

"I thought," he said as she began to finger the button to his trousers, "that was supposed to be the point."

Sara didn't bother to protest this. She was far too busy working the fastener free.

Grissom let out a slightly breathy, "This mean you're conceding defeat?"

She indicated her hand face down on the table. "See for yourself."

He gave each individual card a desultory flip. His wife had nothing to speak of apart from the queen of hearts as her high card. It struck him as fittingly apropos.

"You were bluffing," he observed.

"It is the name of the game after all. Literally. _Poker_ from -"

"From the French _poque_ which in turn comes from the German _pochen_ 'to brag as a bluff,'" Grissom finished knowingly.

That grin of hers was back. "Precisely."

He shook his head. "You really are awfully smug for someone -"

"Mostly naked?"

"Who lost."

Sara shrugged. "I never intended to win."

Considering all his years of experience and her lack thereof, from a purely objective standpoint, she knew she had little hope of beating him outright. Little hope of besting him at all.

"Anyway," she added, "you know what they say."

For once he hadn't the foggiest. "No, what's that?"

"_It's not whether you win or lose_ -"

"_It's how you play the game_," they finished in unison.

"Besides," Sara said, "I prefer to be unlucky at cards, lucky at love."

"Lucky?"

"Very."

This time he readily returned her grin with a knowing nod of his own. "True."

"But, if you play your cards right, I'd say the odds are in your favor for your getting lucky tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Is there an echo in here?" she laughed. "Now, if you keep that up."

The thumb of the hand about her waist was aimlessly tracing that sensitive spot along her side. It was an intimate more than sexual caress, one, which almost, but not quite tickled, yet thoroughly tantalized in such a way which inevitably made her go weak at the knees. And he knew it. And didn't desist.

"_Now_." Her tone was adamant. She reached up to draw him in for a kiss.

His lips had barely grazed hers when he abruptly drew back. "You played me," he said. Certain, amused and impressed all at once, it wasn't a question.

"Not on purpose. Or exactly."

His eyes and cock of the head plainly called _bullshit_.

Without question, Sara had managed to play him better than he'd been played in a long time. Strange thing was, he wasn't all that sore at having been taken for a ride. Quite the contrary. Considering this was where they'd ended up, he certainly wasn't about to complain.

"But," she said with a self-satisfied smirk, "you really might want to reconsider your whole _Sara can't bluff worth a damn _hypothe-"

He cut her off with a heady kiss.

xxxxxxx

That night, Gil Grissom did indeed learn something he hadn't known before about poker: it made for excellent foreplay.


End file.
